With all of the scandals piling up for Facebook, it’s easy to forget the revelation just last month that over 30 million users had their accounts breached in the largest attack in the platform’s history. However, a coalition of Facebook’s critics has not forgotten, and that group has now filed a complaint against the company

With all of the scandals piling up for Facebook, it’s easy to forget the revelation just last month that over 30 million users had their accounts breached in the largest attack in the platform’s history. However, a coalition of Facebook’s critics has not forgotten, and that group has now filed a complaint against the company with the Federal Trade Commission.

Some of the information revealed by the attack last month includes users’ contact information, search history, demographics and more sensitive data. Facebook apologized for the breach and notified affected users, but those steps were not sufficient enough for The Freedom From Facebook Coalition—a group that has previously called for Facebook to be dissolved. According to the group’s complaint, the breach may actually be in violation of a 2011 privacy agreement with the FTC.

“Facebook, Inc. is a serial privacy violator that cannot be trusted,” the complaint read. “It has grown too big and its products have become too integrated and too complex to manage. Not only can we no longer trust Facebook, Inc. to manage its system safely, the corporation no longer has the capacity to do so effectively.”

This sort of public criticism is the last thing Facebook needs following a bombshell New York Times story published this week about the company’s controversial inner workings. But still, last month’s hack really was the biggest in Facebook’s history, and it needs to be held fully accountable for it.

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]]>http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/Facebook-Critics-File-Complaint-Calling-The-Company-A-%e2%80%9cSerial-Privacy-Violator%e2%80%9d.html/Facebook Wants To Use Your Family Photos To Target Adshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Facecrooks/~3/tZIzzb-DW6Y/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 00:56:23 +0000http://facecrooks.com/?p=11382The post Facebook Wants To Use Your Family Photos To Target Ads appeared first on .

Facebook is under fire for a whole host of privacy and security issues this week, including the revelation that it hired PR firms and lobbyists to smear its critics following the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Russian meddling and more. So it was probably not a good time for news to come out that Facebook

This creepy feature would analyze elements of a user’s picture, like faces, tags, descriptions and IP addresses, then cross-reference the information to build a profile of a household. Facebook even offered a hypothetical example of a male user who routinely posts pictures with the same two female subjects. In this example, one of the females is a young girl, and the male user has included a caption that reads “my angel.” Using just that info, Facebook would be able to deduce that the pictures included the man’s wife and daughter. And Facebook would then be able to give that information to advertisers.

Of course, this patent would only cover photos that are shared by users, and nothing from their private messages. Also, just because Facebook filed for a patent doesn’t mean this tool will ever become a reality. But it’s still unsettling to think of the company analyzing pictures of our loved ones this closely.

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The existence of yet another Facebook vulnerability that affected user data was revealed this week by security company Imperva. This latest bug, which was resolved in May, allowed websites to gather private information from Facebook users—and their friends, too. Some of the information this bug exposed included likes, interests, demographics and more. According to security

The existence of yet another Facebook vulnerability that affected user data was revealed this week by security company Imperva. This latest bug, which was resolved in May, allowed websites to gather private information from Facebook users—and their friends, too. Some of the information this bug exposed included likes, interests, demographics and more.

According to security researcher Ron Masas, hackers could’ve exploited a flaw in Facebook’s search results that left it vulnerable to attack. If users happened to visit a website run by bad actors, that site could’ve quietly embedded a tool called an IFRAME to collect that user’s information from their logged-in Facebook profile.

“This allowed information to cross over domains—essentially meaning that if a user visits a particular website, an attacker can open Facebook and can collect information about the user and their friends,” Masas said. “The vulnerability exposed the user and their friends’ interests, even if their privacy settings were set so that interests were only visible to the user’s friends.”

Thankfully, this bug was detected and eliminated back in May, and Facebook says that it has seen no signs of abuse. However, it’s still troubling that flaws this major are still routinely discovered in the largest social media platform in the world.

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Facebook often receives criticism for the hate speech, terrorist content and more that exists on its platform. And, on the flip side, the company has faced scrutiny for removing posts that it shouldn’t. But no matter the outcome, the company’s rules can cause confusion. It’s rarely clear why Facebook makes a decision one way or

Facebook often receives criticism for the hate speech, terrorist content and more that exists on its platform. And, on the flip side, the company has faced scrutiny for removing posts that it shouldn’t. But no matter the outcome, the company’s rules can cause confusion. It’s rarely clear why Facebook makes a decision one way or the other, especially for users who have been affected. That’s why, this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU and more than 70 other groups wrote an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling for the company to let all users file an appeal if their content is removed.

In the letter, the groups write that Facebook’s appeals process “doesn’t go far enough.” They also want Facebook to share more data about the process, including how and why specific posts are removed.

“Facebook remains far behind its competitors when it comes to affording its users due process,” the groups wrote in their letter. “We know from years of research and documentation that human content moderators, as well as machine learning algorithms, are prone to error, and that even low error rates can result in millions of silenced users when operating at massive scale.”

The sheer amount of advocacy groups that reached out to Facebook in this letter is notable, as is their reputation. At the very least, this may force Facebook to sit up and pay attention to what they’re saying.

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Facebook has made it its mission to connect as many users as possible around the world. One of the ways it accomplishes this is through its “Suggested Friends” feature, which offers up an array of people you may (or may not) know in order for you to send them a friend request. This has proven

Facebook has made it its mission to connect as many users as possible around the world. One of the ways it accomplishes this is through its “Suggested Friends” feature, which offers up an array of people you may (or may not) know in order for you to send them a friend request. This has proven to be a controversial tool, as many users have received suggestions for people in their past whom they have no desire to reconnect with. However, according to a recent report in The Telegraph, that may be the least of the feature’s problems.

Through an investigation, the newspaper and discovered that teen girls, some as young as 13 years old, are given up to 300 suggested friends when they join the platform—and that some of the suggested friends are middle-aged men posing without their shirts in their profile photos. A UK-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting children has already called for Facebook to suspend friend recommendations for minors. For its part, Facebook defended itself by saying that this did not represent a “typical” experience for teens who sign up for the site.

“We use artificial intelligence to proactively identify cases of inappropriate interactions with minors and we refer potential abuse to law enforcement,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “We limit how children can be found in search, we remind them to only accept friend requests from people they know and we caution them before making public posts.”

Regardless of whether or not this is a “typical” experience, it’s clear that Facebook needs to strengthen its privacy protections for younger users—because even one incident like this is one too many.

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]]>http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/Report-Facebook-Is-Encouraging-Teen-Girls-To-Befriend-Middle-Aged-Men.html/Facebook Wants To Know When You’re Around Other Users — Even If They’re Strangershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Facecrooks/~3/lIx8Su2OcdI/
Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:45:11 +0000http://facecrooks.com/?p=11372The post Facebook Wants To Know When You’re Around Other Users — Even If They’re Strangers appeared first on .

Facebook already knows a lot about you, but now it wants to know about the people you meet in real life, too. The social media giant was granted a patent last month for technology that would allow it to discover when you’ve shared a physical space with another Facebook user — even if you have

The new patent would let Facebook identify wireless signals from users’ devices, then use those signals to measure exactly how far two users are from one another and for how long. It’s possible that Facebook could even use your phone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to measure your exact movements. That all adds up to Facebook being able to establish your daily patterns and learn who is your significant other, friend, co-worker and much more.

Of course, all of this is in service of connecting users and promoting greater engagement with the platform. But, as some experts have pointed out, Facebook’s step into the real world may prove to be a bridge too far for many users.

“Privacy is a highly contextual concept for many people,” Amie Stepanovich, policy manager for the digital advocacy nonprofit Access Now, told WIRED. “By linking social media with real life interactions, Facebook could blur those lines in a way which isn’t only creepy but potentially dangerous. The ability to move through public life with a degree of anonymity is an important safeguard, and this feature threatens to greatly degrade that ability.”

It’s important to remember that this is just a patent for now, and may never come to fruition. However, the mere fact that Facebook is seriously exploring this technology is unsettling.

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]]>http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/Facebook-Wants-To-Know-When-You%e2%80%99re-Around-Other-Users-%e2%80%94-Even-If-They%e2%80%99re-Strangers.html/Facebook Has Removed 14 Million Pieces Of Terrorist Content This Yearhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Facecrooks/~3/OKwndtiMrG8/
Fri, 09 Nov 2018 16:47:00 +0000http://facecrooks.com/?p=11370The post Facebook Has Removed 14 Million Pieces Of Terrorist Content This Year appeared first on .

As the largest social media platform in the world, Facebook has found itself locked in a never-ending struggle to find and delete harmful or offensive content on its pages. Even content from terrorists. According to Facebook, it has removed about 14 million pieces of terrorist content this year alone—and the number keeps climbing. According to

According to Facebook, terrorists have grown more sophisticated at spreading their message across the platform as Facebook gets better at detecting it. One ISIS backer told his fellow terrorists that they should try to acquire legitimate hacked accounts to spread their message, while others have created code languages or posted their content in bits and pieces to avoid detection.

And while Facebook has removed these posts in massive numbers, the company admits that the problem that will never completely go away.

“We should not view this as a problem that can be ‘solved’ and set aside, even in the most optimistic scenarios,” Facebook wrote in a blog post. “We can reduce the presence of terrorism on mainstream social platforms, but eliminating it completely requires addressing the people and organizations that generate this material in the real-world.”

Facebook may not have volunteered for its role as the Internet’s content police, but that’s exactly where it’s ended up—and too often the company is not up to the task.

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Facebook has promised users the ability to delete their sent messages for almost a year. And according to release notes for the latest version of the Facebook Messenger app, the feature is finally on its way. But this helpful bit of privacy control only came about in the first place because Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook has promised users the ability to delete their sent messages for almost a year. And according to release notes for the latest version of the Facebook Messenger app, the feature is finally on its way. But this helpful bit of privacy control only came about in the first place because Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got caught using it all for himself.

The controversy began last April, when TechCrunch revealed that Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives had been deleting their messages from other people’s inboxes without telling the public. After this was revealed, Facebook promised it would soon roll out the tool for all users. However, months passed without any new developments, and critics began to question whether or not it would ever arrive at all. But, with the discovery of the latest app update, the feature seems to be closer than ever to reality.

There’s only one catch: Facebook users will only get a 10-minute window to recall messages that they’ve sent. That’s not equivalent to the power Facebook’s executives had before the tool was discovered, but it is something. However, for users who are truly concerned about their privacy, it might be a better idea to use Messenger’s “Secret Conversations” encryption feature—or maybe to chat on a different platform altogether.

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Facebook received intense criticism following the 2016 election for not doing enough to block fake and malicious content intended to affect the outcome. However, the social media giant appears to have taken all of that disapproval to heart; this week, the company announced it had taken down over 100 accounts on both Facebook and Instagram

Facebook received intense criticism following the 2016 election for not doing enough to block fake and malicious content intended to affect the outcome. However, the social media giant appears to have taken all of that disapproval to heart; this week, the company announced it had taken down over 100 accounts on both Facebook and Instagram after receiving a tip from U.S. law enforcement.

Facebook was careful not to point any fingers in its brief statement, but Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of Cybersecurity Policy, did note that most of the pages tied to the accounts were in the Russian and French languages. A joint statement from law enforcement officials also seemed to confirm that the accounts were removed because of suspected foreign interference.

“Americans should be aware that foreign actors—and Russia in particular—continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions,” the statement read. “They can do this by spreading false information about political processes and candidates, lying about their own interference activities, disseminating propaganda on social media, and through other tactics.”

While it’s great that Facebook is more aware of this problem than it was the last time around, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the company is merely touting these account removals for a little good PR. Of course, as users, all we can do is approach content on social media with a healthy skepticism — and only click on the sources we trust.

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]]>http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/Facebook-Removes-Over-100-Fake-Accounts-Ahead-Of-Elections.html/Facebook Under Fire For “Transparency” Efforts Around Political Adshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Facecrooks/~3/BPfkfV6T6C8/
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 22:35:21 +0000http://facecrooks.com/?p=11363The post Facebook Under Fire For “Transparency” Efforts Around Political Ads appeared first on .

A magnifying glass has been put up to Facebook’s political advertising practices this week because of the U.S. midterm elections—and what experts have discovered isn’t good for the company. Last week, several news outlets reported that they were able to buy political ads under any name they wanted, including ISIS and Mike Pence. And now,

A magnifying glass has been put up to Facebook’s political advertising practices this week because of the U.S. midterm elections—and what experts have discovered isn’t good for the company. Last week, several news outlets reported that they were able to buy political ads under any name they wanted, including ISIS and Mike Pence. And now, an analysis featured in TechCrunch has revealed that Facebook basically has no way to make sure fake accounts stay off the platform once they’re detected.

According to the research, conducted by Jonathan Albright of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, there are an “alarming number” of influential Facebook ad campaigns operated by accounts outside the U.S. He also noted that Facebook has no real system in place to monitor pages once they pass an initial verification check. This leaves the entire system of buying and placing ads wide open for abuse.

“After finding these huge discrepancies, I found it difficult to trust any of Facebook’s reporting tools or historical Page information,” Albright wrote in his report. “I knew that the information reported in the follow-ups was likely to be inaccurate. In other words, Facebook’s political ad transparency tools—and I mean all of them—offer no real basis for evaluation.”

Facebook has repeatedly pledged to be more transparent with users about who is behind the advertising on its platform, but if this report is any indication, all that talk may be just that.

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